This is absolutly insane.
Jstas
Posts: 14,806
Read this story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23117250/
Yes, you read it right. People are stealing catalytic converters for the worth of the precious metals contained inside.
What makes this insane? Lotsa stuff.
Number 1, catalytic converters need to heat up to some insane temperature level to work properly. They stay hot for hours after the car is no longer running. Trying to pull one off just to steal it would cause a thief a great deal of pain unless properly equipped. Also, ever try and pull a rusted exhaust bolt? Yeah, not an easy task without air tools.
Number 2, you gotta pull these things within the first few hundred miles because the metals get fouled and chemically changed. That's how they work. I can't imagine the used metals full of all kinds of nasties would be worth all that much.
Number 3, this one is really insane, the penalties if you get caught. Yeah, sure, larceny, theft, vandalism, etc., etc., etc... Yeah, the fines, penalties and punishments for deliberately tampering with a federally mandated emissions system that has not failed in less than 80,000 miles comes with fines in the tens of thousands of dollars and jail time with a maximum of like 15 years. I think stealing in most states is 10? But then again, you'd go away in state prison for theft. For emissions device tampering, you go to federal "pound me in the ****" prison.
All that for $200 worth of metal? What people won't do to make a buck. I really hope this news story is bogus otherwise I will have lost all faith in mankind whatsoever.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23117250/
Yes, you read it right. People are stealing catalytic converters for the worth of the precious metals contained inside.
What makes this insane? Lotsa stuff.
Number 1, catalytic converters need to heat up to some insane temperature level to work properly. They stay hot for hours after the car is no longer running. Trying to pull one off just to steal it would cause a thief a great deal of pain unless properly equipped. Also, ever try and pull a rusted exhaust bolt? Yeah, not an easy task without air tools.
Number 2, you gotta pull these things within the first few hundred miles because the metals get fouled and chemically changed. That's how they work. I can't imagine the used metals full of all kinds of nasties would be worth all that much.
Number 3, this one is really insane, the penalties if you get caught. Yeah, sure, larceny, theft, vandalism, etc., etc., etc... Yeah, the fines, penalties and punishments for deliberately tampering with a federally mandated emissions system that has not failed in less than 80,000 miles comes with fines in the tens of thousands of dollars and jail time with a maximum of like 15 years. I think stealing in most states is 10? But then again, you'd go away in state prison for theft. For emissions device tampering, you go to federal "pound me in the ****" prison.
All that for $200 worth of metal? What people won't do to make a buck. I really hope this news story is bogus otherwise I will have lost all faith in mankind whatsoever.
Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
Post edited by Jstas on
Comments
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Where there is a will.....
The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club -
It says it withstands heat up to 540 degrees. I've had the laser thermometer read above 800 degrees on a hot exhaust header. Race cars can pump out over 1100 degrees in some cases. Most catalytic converters in modern cars and trucks operate around 700-800 degrees. Yeah, touch that casing and your skin will melt off of your hand and stick to the converter before all the moisture evaporates and the now scalded and very dead skin bursts in to flames or smolders into a fatty, sooty black mess on the casing.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
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I lost faith a couple years ago. sometimes I wonder if im just bitter, but then someone does something to prove my point again.
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Whats really sad is no dumb **** thief is ever going to know there is something worth a buck in the CC's....it took an educated scumbag to realize that....sad :rolleyes:The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club
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they are called CATALYTIC converter because it uses a catalyst. something that is unchanged in the chemical reaction(the CO and other unburnt fuel burning completely).
Payton
did not read article, sorry if this doesn't apply.Polk monitor 10B's and 5 jr's
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Most thieves are pretty stupid so this doesn't surprise me. It's like the guy who holds up the gas station with a gun. They hope to get $200-$300 and have to know they risk 20 to life. The risk/reward quotient is simply too low.My Main Gear
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they are called CATALYTIC converter because it uses a catalyst. something that is unchanged in the chemical reaction(the CO and other unburnt fuel burning completely).
Payton
did not read article, sorry if this doesn't apply.
The metal of value to a thief is Platinum. The other two are palladium and rhodium. IIRC, the platinum is used in the reduction and oxidation processes. I might be mistake. It's been a while since chemistry in college. But, one of the three common metals is sacrificial. It either bonds to excessive oxygen in a lean environment to clean carbon-monoxide and hydrocarbons or it releases oxygen in a rich environment to clean NOx emissions. It is either oxidizing or ionizing I think it is? Either way, it's bonding to atoms or releasing atoms and that changes chemical makeup of the compounds.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
At work we use Rhodium ( One of the trace metals in the CC's ) targets on a lot of the vacuum tools....the target metal gets deposited onto the wafer during the process. A side effect of this deposition is the entire inside of the vacuum tool gets deposited with the Rhodium as well and needs to be cleaned off at least once a week ( Or the process suffers and you also need to change the targets as the Rhodium of course is being used and you risk a punch through to the copper if left in too long)
The targets themselves weigh 25 pounds...the first 1/4" is pure Rhodium weighing 8 pounds...behind that is copper. 8 pounds of Rhodium is 16oz x 8 = 128oz's Market price for Rhodium today is 8,700 an ounce :eek:
Making that target I pull out of the fort knox safe they are stored in ( Along with one supervisor and 2 armed guards ) worth about a little more than 1.1 million dollars EACH !
The reason for the post is that when we were cleaning the vacuum chambers once a week...all the Rhodium was being scotchbrited off and vacuumed away ...nobody ever thought it would be worth the effort of reclaiming...its only flakes and dust right ?
2 years ago a new hire asked why we werent reclaiming the metals ...so for an experiment the vacuum used on ONE tool was chained to the tool and sealed so you couldnt empty the contents of the vacuum ( It was cleaned before sealing of course ) and used for one month ...4 cleanings...then sent to a metal reclaiming company.
The report sent back to us was there was 188,000 dollars worth of usable Rhodium inside the vacuum :eek: ( Lets see...188K divided by 8,700 an ounce is a little over 21 and a half ounces of Rhodium in the vacuum...barely over one pound ) In the past , I have had to empty those same vacuums because they were full and not working good anymore...so had every other tech....empty them in the garbage. Can you imagine what a full vacuum would be worth ?The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club -
i looked it up and it looks like your right the metal does store oxygen from the NOx compounds. it also looks like most of the time they are sold as replacements and not taken apart for the metal.
PaytonThe metal of value to a thief is Platinum. The other two are palladium and rhodium. IIRC, the platinum is used in the reduction and oxidation processes. I might be mistake. It's been a while since chemistry in college. But, one of the three common metals is sacrificial. It either bonds to excessive oxygen in a lean environment to clean carbon-monoxide and hydrocarbons or it releases oxygen in a rich environment to clean NOx emissions. It is either oxidizing or ionizing I think it is? Either way, it's bonding to atoms or releasing atoms and that changes chemical makeup of the compounds.Polk monitor 10B's and 5 jr's
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Well rhodium and palladium are very valuable and rhodium is the most expensive metal. But they are used in industrial applications. Also, the cost of the metals is quite high and if a regular joe on the street has any quantity of rhodium and/or palladium, it's gonna raise eye brows because of the cost of the metals. But platinum, nobody is gonna bat an eye lash at platinum comparatively.
Besides, in the catalytic converters, the amounts of these metals are not significant enough since they are just "washed" on in the manufacturing process. You'd have to get quite a few converters to get anything near a pound of the metals. Then again, you'd probably have to search pretty hard to find a reclamation plant with the smelting equipment needed to get the metals out that also lacked the scruples to accept what is obviously stolen goods. Even if the evidence is melted down and destroyed, a constant supply of such metals coming out of the plant will raise suspicion from customs let alone the local constabulary.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
i looked it up and it looks like your right the metal does store oxygen from the NOx compounds. it also looks like most of the time they are sold as replacements and not taken apart for the metal.
Payton
Which is another reason the article doesn't make sense. Especially due to the issues I mentioned in the last post. If the thieves are stealing them for the metal, how are they getting the metals out? Even college chemistry labs, unless they are doing things like printing circuit boards themselves, don't have the equipment needed to get the metals separated and reclaimed.
Stupid media. BE MORE FUN!Expert Moron Extraordinaire
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Doesn't surprise me in the least. I remember going to a strip mall last year to work on an a/c unit. Never been to this city before, and I knew right away it was a BAD neighborhood-ALL the condensing units were moved to the roof, because scumbags were cutting the copper lines that carry the REFRIGERANT, and stealing the outdoor units.
Guess what the EPA fines are for ACCIDENTALY discharging refrigerants into the air?
$100,000.00!!!I refuse to argue with idiots, because people can't tell the DIFFERENCE! -
It's like the guys f'ing up new Mustangs at the dealer to get the airbags.
I saw a bunch of them at the back of the lot and asked the salesman
what happened. They did a couple of grand of damage to get a couple of
airbags to sell for a $100 bucks. Multiply that by 12 and that just makes you
see red."The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson -
because scumbags were cutting the copper lines
I work for a baby bell, and it's amazing how brazen these jerkoffs are in stealing our stuff. They'll come into our yard during the day and load up with scrap copper cable, hoping they don't get caught. They'll cut cable off the poles, and they've broke into the yard on weekends and stole entire reels weighing thousands of pounds.
The worst is when they cut up a fiber cable not realizing until it's too late there's no copper there. You just can't splice one of those babies back together like it's copper.My equipment sig felt inadequate and deleted itself. -
I worked with these guys from downtown philadelphia, they had big padalocks on the hoods of their trucks, the kind you would see on a shed door. I asked what was up with it and they said people would steal the battery for the $5 core charge at the junk yard. One guy came out of the convenience store and his truck wouldn't start, he pops the hood and his battery is gone, just the cables hanging there!! All that to scrap a perfectly good battery for $5 ! All I have to say is crack must be really good to make a person do some f'ed up stuff like that.
-
Read this story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23117250/
Yes, you read it right. People are stealing catalytic converters for the worth of the precious metals contained inside.
What makes this insane? Lotsa stuff.
Number 1, catalytic converters need to heat up to some insane temperature level to work properly. They stay hot for hours after the car is no longer running. Trying to pull one off just to steal it would cause a thief a great deal of pain unless properly equipped. Also, ever try and pull a rusted exhaust bolt? Yeah, not an easy task without air tools.
Number 2, you gotta pull these things within the first few hundred miles because the metals get fouled and chemically changed. That's how they work. I can't imagine the used metals full of all kinds of nasties would be worth all that much.
Number 3, this one is really insane, the penalties if you get caught. Yeah, sure, larceny, theft, vandalism, etc., etc., etc... Yeah, the fines, penalties and punishments for deliberately tampering with a federally mandated emissions system that has not failed in less than 80,000 miles comes with fines in the tens of thousands of dollars and jail time with a maximum of like 15 years. I think stealing in most states is 10? But then again, you'd go away in state prison for theft. For emissions device tampering, you go to federal "pound me in the ****" prison.
All that for $200 worth of metal? What people won't do to make a buck. I really hope this news story is bogus otherwise I will have lost all faith in mankind whatsoever.
Cat converter theft is a serious problem here in Quebec. A car dealer recently had over a dozen cat converters stolen from their new cars in the lot. The thieves use battery powered saws and it takes only a couple of minutes and the cats' are gone.
Parking lots are good "hunting grounds" for converters. We get a few customers in every month at the shop with missing converters.
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They like to hit fleet lots, too. All those cats lined up in a row... Vans and trucks are easier to slide under than cars, too.
What's interesting to me, is that they claim a $200 value. Well, that's interesting... we sell them for $90 at Autozone. Maybe I should get into that business. Screw all the work of cutting them off vehicles. I'll forfeit a couple bucks to sell brand new ones to the scrapyards and not have to get my hands dirty...Ludicrous gibs! -
The biggest problem here in Minneapolis are the scumbags who break into vacant homes/ those for sale and go into the basement and cut all the water lines for the copper....lots of houses ruined by flooding and then freezing basements...cost to fix, many many thousands for a few hundred dollars of metal...
yes that crack does have a powerful hold on too many......................
